Project 365 - Days 152-166
Getting to the middle. It's June and I'm still shooting daily to get my shots for Project 365. I haven't been very good at uploading the photos because I like to do a lot of my processing all at once and get everything done in one sitting. I finally have a chance to catch up and I'll be posting a couple blog updates for my photos this month. Here's a quick entry to show off some photos that were taken at the beginning of the month.
[152/365] :: Kicks. My son really likes wearing shoes. It's a huge contrast from my wife and me since we'd both rather be toes free in flip-flops. When I first uploaded and viewed this shot on the computer, I really didn't think much of it. I thought it was a little boring. But I began to mess around with it a little in Adobe Lightroom and decided to try it out as a black and white. I thought it helped the photo tremendously and instantly had more appeal to me. With the color removed, all other aspects of the photo began to come out. The perspective used was more meaningful and the position of my son's stance gave him a more mature, grown-up presence that I didn't see when it was a color photo. The dirt and grittiness on his shoes told me that this was a kid that loved to have fun and didn't mind getting a little messy. So, instead of taking away from the image, the addition of black and white actually added a whole lot more to it.
[153/365] :: Ultra Magnus. I think I'm going to have to do one Transformers toy photo each month. This shot was taken with my DIY Ring Flash with the toy against one of my favorite backgrounds - a suede dining room chair. I really do have to get creative with my backgrounds since I don't own a soft box and I don't shoot in a proper studio for my portraits. I always have to work with what I've got and I feel that this type of shooting can help me in future situations where I may not have everything I need to get a particular shot. Working with what's given to me has worked out so far. I just need to make sure I keep my mind open and stay creative when trying to find that shot.
[154/365] :: Corvette Diner. I'd been craving me some peanut butter/bacon burger for some time, so my wife and I decided to have a late night dinner date for some Rory Burgers at Corvette Diner. We each had a burger and shared a milk shake. I really like all the different lights and decorations in the restaurant to ensure that customers were treated to a great blast-from-the-past Rock n' Roll experience. I definitely had to take a few shots of the ambiance during this visit. These guys are serious about setting the mood. The neon lights, vintage signs, gumball machines, and the Corvette in the middle of the restaurant really made you feel like you were transported back in time. And the food was good, too!
[155/365] :: With Tita Chelle. This is a simple snapshot of my sister and my son. We were at a birthday party for my little nephew and the place where the party was held had this mini theater where kids could dress up and be on camera to act out scenes. My son wasn't interested in getting dressed up, but he was very curious about seeing himself on the TV screen just above where I'm standing to take this picture. They are waving at themselves on the monitor in this shot. I used a bare flash on camera to light them in the middle of the frame and tried to keep the shadows at a minimum behind them.
[156/365] :: Ethan-Bot. Shot with my magic lens; the 135L. I love shooting with this lens. I don't take it out of the bag often, but when I do, all sorts of magic starts to happen. Backgrounds just disappear and images appear on my camera perfectly exposed. I don't ever have to do any type of post process on any of the pictures taken with this lens. It just works and it captures everything I want without any trouble. This little robot was the lucky subject of the photo for the day. We were at a birthday party outdoors in a park. It was the perfect place to bring out the lens and snap some pictures.
[157/365] :: The All Seeing Eye. I wanted to do another DIY Ring Flash shot today and decided to try shooting a lens using a different perspective than what people are used to seeing in lens pictures. The lens in this photo is my 400L. It's got a nice big 77mm front element that I wanted to showcase in this picture. With the camera and ring flash positioned just above the subject, I snapped the shot and came out with this. It came out pretty close to what I expected. I was trying to get a reflection of the ring flash to come out on the glass element of the lens. What I didn't expect to get was the different colors that made up the reflection of the flash. The greens, oranges, and yellows really make this picture pop and keep the photo from being a boring image.
[158/365] :: It's a Llama. Our family tries to visit this farmer's market every week. They usually have these llamas around for the kids to take rides on. This guy must have been sitting down for a rest between rides. It was really hard to get him isolated and exposed properly with the backlighting. I fixed some of the exposure in post processing and added a vignette to hide some of the distracting background in the photo.
[159/365] :: Hmm. I wonder what kind of thought process he goes through whenever he stops to think about things. This little boy is amazing. He's growing up so fast and absorbing all kinds of knowledge like a sponge! He looks to be in deep thought here, but I think he's trying to decide whether he wants frozen yogurt or a milk shake.
[160/365] :: Mami Kanemitsu - We Are Heroes. My good friend scored us a couple of tickets to E3 2011 this year, so we took advantage of it and spent the day at the expo. I borrowed a 17-55/2.8 IS to take pictures during the event. I actually didn't shoot too many pictures, but I still came away with some pretty good shots from the event. This was shot during a performance of the We Are Heroes dance crew. They are winners of MTV's America's Best Dance Crew Season 4. I actually have never heard of them, but my friend was quite the expert (fanatic). He thought this dancer looked best out of the whole crew, so I focused my shots on her. Lucky for me, I ended up in the right spot and at the right time for this shot. She was isolated in the routine and I was front row center for the performance. I quickly shot a series of shots during her isolation performance and picked this one to showcase. I love how it turned out and the post edit I did worked really well on the photo. It has quickly become one of my favorite shots to date.
[161/365] :: His Sensitive Side. My son attempting to show off his sensitive side while posing for me in a mini photo shoot. This kid is gonna break some hearts in the future.
[162/365] :: Let Me In. We were at a house party this evening and my son noticed this cat looking in through the glass door. I'm not sure if it was a stray or a pet. The cat just sat there and held my son's attention for a few minutes before disappearing into the night. I thought he had some cool looking eyes with the striking yellow irises around the dark pupils. He looked like he could almost hypnotize you into sliding the door open and letting him in.
[163/365] :: Finding Nemo. This was a shot taken at the Birch Aquarium. I hope to start up a reef aquarium of my own soon, but visiting this aquarium and viewing their reef tanks will have to suffice for now. These little guys were in a small tank containing just a few corals, this anemone host, and the two mated clownfish. They shied away from me whenever I came near them with the camera. I finally got this shot of them using the long end of my 24-105L to capture the shot. Aquariums are difficult environments to shoot because I have a lot of factors to take into account. The glass is a very hard element to shoot through and it's got to be very clean to get a good capture. Usually lighting around aquariums is very dim and my exposure is constantly changing with the different environments. Also, fish and other tank inhabitants can move very quickly, so the timing of the shot is crucial if I want to avoid any kind of motion blur. I was able to put everything together for this shot and ended up with something I could use.
[164/365] :: The Point. This is PB point viewed off of Tourmaline Beach Park. It breaks out there on occasion with some fun sized surf. Just out of frame to the right of the photo would be the current MTV's Real World San Diego (2011) house overlooking the beach. This shot is just really peaceful and inviting. It makes me want to drive out there right now to check for some waves.
[165/365] :: Light Petals. This was taken outdoors just before the sun was about to set. The petals on the flowers make me think of a light shining through the darkness below it. I was surprised this shot came out well because there was a very strong wind blowing the flower and leaves side to side while I was trying to get this shot. I waited for it to die down a little bit, but it was still blowing when I snapped the shutter. I guess my shutter speed at 1/125 was fast enough to stop the movement to get this image.
[166/365] :: Pattern. I was just playing around with depth of field and angles in this simple pattern shot. It was a pattern used for decoration at a party we were planning. I shot this wide open at f/4.0 with the 24-105L. I was surprised that I was able to get this sort of DOF blur from the lens being so close to the subject. I think I was about 18 inches away. Focus is spot on with this lens and the blurred bokeh is very pleasing to the eye.
